A majority of AC electrical wiring of residential, commercial and industrial structures, as one of important steps in providing completed structure with required power, has fallen drastically behind the progress attained in other areas of construction, such as: wiring for communications, including phone lines, LAN, internet, etc. Based on existing methods of wiring AC electrical power, the installation time, installation quality, reliability, repeatability and end-result including safety of installations—depends heavily on hi-skill manual labor. As result, overall quality of each practical installation is at a mercy of an installation crew, which must maintain required: workmanship skills; detailed attention to specifications, including wiring diagrams, which are more complex these days due to demands for larger and sophisticated structures; installation quality at a rather intensive schedule of completion; etc. In addition to problems stated above, the associated costs of electrical power wiring of a structure—is constantly going up, not so much due to better quality of materials, but rather due to increases in labor costs.
While the costs of building materials in general went up significantly, and while the buildings themselves have appreciated substantially, the existing electrical components and technology used for wiring electrical power has remained disproportionably behind. The existing technology is utilizing primarily individual wires, not cables, and as result, it is very challenging to reduce electromagnetic interferences produced by power devices and propagated along these wires, which will: present health risks to individuals situated in a close proximity; and impact operating environment for other devices.
A majority of electrical and electro-mechanical equipment, including: machinery, stand-alone devices, computers—require adequate means for connecting to required electrical power, and then providing power distribution within them. For simplicity, the applicable equipment in this application will be referred as device.
There are a number of applications, where electrical power to devices is provided via interface modules, including ones that resemble a standard power strip. There is a range of equipment, such as ATM machines, Vending machines, and Process machines in general, etc., that will be considered a main device, which will incorporate other secondary devices within them, such as: display monitor, printer, etc., which also require electrical power applied to them.
The existing power distribution methods, although being adequate in electrical power ratings, are not conveniently packaged to provide cost-efficient solutions. As a result, designers of power distribution systems (AC and DC) have little choice, but to employ a number of off-the-shelf individual components, and then provide power distribution between them via discrete cables, wires, leaving a number of exposed hi-power leads, terminals, etc. presenting a safety hazard.
The method of utilization of stand-alone devices (TV, TV cable boxes, Stereo equipment, etc.), which currently have their own AC-DC power converter, is inefficient. Every AC-DC power converter or power supply has a power converting efficiency of around 90%, i.e. 10% wasted. In an average household the wasted power from all power converters installed can exceeds 100 W during operation of the devices, and ˜20 W during their idle mode. That is a lot of KWH wasted every day at an average household alone, which amounts to Mega Watts for a region, and enormous for our country.
In summary, the existing power distribution methods do not provide a cost efficient, most reliable and safe solution.